IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Winter 2014 - 46

be buffered to fix timing and electrical
Texas Chapter, also the founding
violations, so buffering was the main
chair of the IEEE CEDA Chapter of
way wires were synthesized. Wire sizthe Central Texas Section. (The Secing was rarely used because it used
tion won the 2012 IEEE Region 5
up costly routing resources. However,
Outstanding Large Section Award.)
around that time, IBM started to move
Moreover, he received the President
to a heterogeneous layer stack, which
Volunteer Service Award in 2012
means higher metal had thicker wire
and 2013 for volunteers contribut(and the rest of the industry is now
ing more than 100 hours a year.
following). The metal layer that a wire
What do you regard as the impetus
was assigned to greatly affected the
for such devoted volunteer work on
delay. Thicker wire is less resistive
his part for the benefit of the engiand much faster. This means
neering profession?
that there is an entirely new
CA: Zhuo simThis award is a
dimension to the problem
ply loves the EDA
pretty new award,
of optimizing interconfield, and I think it's
and
when I read the
nect. Further, thick metal
his
unquenchable
description, it was
has fewer wires so one
thirst for knowledge
obvious to me that
has to be prudent in
that drives all this. By
Zhuo
is a more than
the assignment. Solvorganizing the commudeserving candidate.
ing buffering and layer
nity and arranging talks,
assignment simultahe gets a direct benefit:
neously with a heterolearning. His love for the
geneous wire stack is the modern wire
field also drove his outstanding work
synthesis problem, and I consider
for the 50th DAC. The reputation of
Zhuo the leader in the field.
this conference and the entire comSSC: Zhuo has an extraordinary
munity rests on the success of a sucrecord as a central Texas IC comcessful show, so he made a personal
munity leader. He was the 50th DAC
investment of time and energy to
Local Program Committee chair and
bring the community together to
is currently the secretary of the IEEE
make this DAC a great success.
Central Texas Section and chair of
SSC: In 2011, the CAS/SSC Central
IEEE CAS/SSC Joint Society Central
Texas Chapter won the IEEE Circuits

and Systems Society 2011 Regions
1-7 Chapter of the Year Award as
well as the IEEE Solid-State Circuits
Society 2011 Outstanding Chapter
Award. In 2012, the Central Texas
Section won the IEEE Region 5 Outstanding Large Section Award. How
would you account for Zhuo's talent
for leadership at both the Chapter
and Section levels?
CA: Zhuo leads by example. He
doesn't deflect work but takes it on
directly. It's hard not to be inspired
by that. He doesn't tell anyone what
to do, but he reaches out to everyone, figures out who is willing to do
what, and then makes it happen. It's
all based on an incredible work ethic.
He also really likes people and loves
to learn from them, so he's willing to
go out of his comfort zone to make
contacts and make connections.
SSC: What led you to nominate
Zhuo for the 2013 CEDA Early Career
Award at this point in his career?
CA: This award is a pretty new
award, and when I read the description, it was obvious to me that Zhuo is
a more than deserving candidate. His
impressive credentials made it easy
for me to put the nomination forward.
-Compiled by Katherine Olstein

BiogrAphy
Dr. Zhuo Li, who is currently with IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, has contributed to numerous IBM high performance ASIC designs, as well
as POWER 7, Xbox 360, Sony/Toshiba/IBM cell processors, Blue Gene/Q, Power7 Hub Chip (key to the IBM PERCS supercomputer), PRISM, and
zEnterprise. His research interests include physical synthesis, parasitic extraction, circuit modeling and simulation, algorithms and applications with
networks of neurosynaptic cores, and the design and analysis of general large-scale algorithms. He is also working on the IBM SyNAPSE project. He
has coauthored over 70 conference and journal papers and one book chapter, and he has filed more than 50 patents with 20 issued.
Dr. Li joined IEEE as a Student Member in 2001 and became a Senior Member in 2009, having received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'ian, China, in 1998 and 2001, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in computer engineering from Texas A&M
University, College Station, in 2005. He was a cofounder of Pextra Corp, which was acquired by Mentor Graphics in 2009.
His many awards include several IBM technical/invention awards, the Best Paper Award at ASPDAC 2007, the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Outstanding Young Author Award at DAC 2007, and three Best Paper Award Nominations, at ISPD 2012, ICCAD 2008, and ISQED 2008. He received the
Technical Leadership Award from ACM SIGDA in 2011 for organizing a power grid simulation contest; in 2012, the SRC Mahboob Khan Outstanding
Industry Liaison/Associate Award; and in 2013, the DAC Service Award as well as the IEEE 2012 Region 5 Outstanding Individual Member Achievement
Award. He also received the 2012 and 2013 President Volunteer Service Award (for volunteers contributing more than 100 hours a year).
Dr. Li was contest chair of the 2011 and 2012 TAU Power Grid Simulation Contest and chair of the 2013 CAD Contest at ICCAD. He was also the
50th DAC Local Program Committee chair.

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